Problems › The Team Is Not Executing the Plan › Fintech

The Team Is Not Executing the Plan
in Fintech

When a plan is not executed in fintech, the organisation is usually protecting blended take rate and contribution margin at the expense of TPV growth. For fintech companies, this shows up in a particular place. The numbers that carry the answer are blended take rate and charge-off rate, and the complication specific to this industry is that lending fixed the P&L and converts revenue worth a 7x multiple into revenue worth a 2x multiple. The general version of this problem and the one you are actually in have different first moves.

The short answer

Execution failure is rarely unwillingness. Teams continue to optimise for the metrics that determine their P&L and valuation: they avoid increasing charge-off rate or lowering take rate because lending converts high-multiple revenue into low-multiple revenue and the warehouse facility and risk limits make the trade-off visible every month.

The diagnostic question is what the team is being asked to give up and who reimburses them for it. A plan that requires originations or merchant support to accept higher charge-offs or lower blended take rate to grow TPV will stall because those teams are measured and paid on contribution margin and CAC by channel, not on the aggregate payment volume reported to the CFO.

The second common cause is arithmetic: the plan requires more warehouse capacity or underwriting headcount than is available, so the organisation processes the volume it can fund and the rest of the plan is simply never reached.

How to tell this is actually your problem

These three together are the signature. One on its own usually points somewhere else.

✓ TPV and merchant count remain flat while the stated plan called for growth through lending or new channels.
✓ Weekly updates list merchant calls made or applications reviewed rather than movement in contribution margin or charge-off rate.
✓ The teams asked to originate or support lending products continue to be measured on the same take rate and CAC targets that the plan requires them to reduce.

The move that usually makes it worse. Sending more communications about the importance of the plan, which treats the issue as a comprehension problem when the constraint is the P&L and warehouse arithmetic.

Who this is for — and who it is not

It is for you if you run or finance a fintech and the plan is understood and agreed and still nothing changes. It is the situation where the numbers are available but nobody has put them in an order that produces a decision.

It is not for you if Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures. Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library. Also wrong if you need facilitation, politics, or someone to sit with a lender or buyer. Those are human jobs.

Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library.

What this looks like when the analysis is actually run

Below is an excerpt from a real run of this analysis on a fintech. It is a sample profile rather than a customer, and it is unedited engine output — this is the format you get, on your own numbers.

The subject is Verrano Pay, a sample company profile used for testing rather than a customer — $84M net revenue, 28,000 merchants, $9.4B of payment volume.

Excerpt from a real Percision run · Pricing Strategy · sample company profile

The move. Convert the $110M lending book into a two-sided marketplace that adds 100k merchants and 3+ capital providers within 36 months while staying inside the $150M warehouse facility

The leak it closes. Plugs value leakage to partner platforms by surfacing competing capital offers inside the Verrano dashboard, reducing merchant incentive to leave the ecosystem when platforms launch competing lending products

The assumption it rests on. Warehouse facility remains available at current terms for at least 24 months — the engine put the probability at 0.75.

What the run committed to
Investment required	$2.1M-$4.2M total over 36 months
Expected return	18.3×-54.9× on $2.1M-$4.2M investment if marketplace captures 15-45% of $42B TAM at 70% contribution margin
Revenue, year 1	$1.9M-$5.8M marketplace revenue
Revenue, year 2	$7.7M-$23.1M marketplace revenue
Revenue, year 3	$19.2M-$57.6M marketplace revenue
Exit criteria	Terminate marketplace initiative if fewer than 2 capital providers commit by Month 12 OR if 90-day rolling charge-off rate exceeds 7.5% before Month 18; redirect resources to direct-acquisition lending expansion or payments CAC payback improvement

This is one move out of a full analysis. Read a complete report — every page, no email required.

What the engine does with this question

This question routes to Organizational Alignment Model, one of 29 engagements the platform runs. For fintech companies it works through blended take rate, charge-off rate, contribution margin and CAC by channel, then produces the sequence rather than a list of options — which move first, what it funds, and the observation that would say the sequence is wrong.

You watch the analysis get built before paying anything. Read a complete report here if you would rather see the depth first.

Questions people ask about this

How do I get buy-in for a strategy?

Change what people are measured on before asking them to behave differently. Buy-in follows the incentive far more reliably than it follows the explanation.

Is this a people problem?

Occasionally. Far more often it is a structure problem that looks like a people problem, which is worth testing first because replacing people does not fix a structure and is expensive to discover.

Should the plan be simplified?

Usually yes, but for capacity reasons rather than comprehension. A plan with three priorities that fit the capacity available beats one with twelve that do not.

Is this different in fintech than in other industries?

Materially, yes. Lending fixed the P&L and converts revenue worth a 7x multiple into revenue worth a 2x multiple — which changes both the diagnosis and the order of the fixes. The metrics that decide it here are blended take rate, charge-off rate, contribution margin, and an answer built on industry-general benchmarks will usually point at the wrong one first.

What data do I need before this analysis is worth running for a fintech?

Less than most people expect. Your last twelve months of revenue and cost split the way you already split it, plus whatever you hold on blended take rate and charge-off rate. The analysis is explicit about what it is assuming where your data stops, which is more useful than waiting for numbers you may never have.

When is Percision the wrong tool?

Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures. Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library. Also wrong if you need facilitation, politics, or someone to sit with a lender or buyer. Those are human jobs.